PDP patron, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has warned India and Pakistan to get ready for "colossal" cost, if they failed to resolve the issue of Kashmir, reports Rashid Ahmad.

People's Democratic Party (PDP) Patron, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has warned India and Pakistan to get ready for "colossal" cost, if they failed to resolve the issue of Kashmir.

He said that the fast-changing ground realities in the sub-continent necessitated initiation of concrete measures for the peaceful and ultimate settlement of the Kashmir issue. "India and Pakistan must grab this historic opportunity and address the intractable issue that has made the people of Jammu & Kashmir pay a huge price," he said.

Mufti's warning came during his speech in a public meeting at Kalaroos Lolab in frontier district Kupwara on Saturday. "While the external dimensions of the Kashmir issue are being handled through bilateral diplomacy, the initiative must be supplemented by substantial internal measures offering general relief to the people of Jammu & Kashmir," Mufti said but added that all such processes and initiatives would be meaningless unless the common people in Kashmir feel the change. He said that the people of Kashmir were the worst sufferers and that had to be carried along in the peace-building and reconciliation process to ensure its sustainability. "This fundamental fact has to be recognised to completely end the atmosphere of armed confrontation by replacing dependence on the security forces with greater trust in the people of the state," he said.

Mufti said that assertion of their identity by the people of Jammu & Kashmir at different points of the post-independence history, were misread by some and misdirected by others. "It is time that the state is brought out of the troubles that are not of its own making," he said and added that the country has to move fast in bringing the democratic temper and character in its full force and measure to Jammu & Kashmir to address the alienation of its people.

Welcoming the Prime Minister's Third Roundtable Conference on Jammu & Kashmir which is proposed to be held in the last week of this month, Sayeed, however, said that it must be result-oriented and the recommendations finalised by the four Working Groups should be approved for implementation. "I am sure these recommendations, when implemented, would provide the much-needed breakthrough in addressing the internal dimensions of the Kashmir issue by taking care of the aspirations and grievances of the people from all the regions, religions and ethnic groups of the state," he said and expressed the hope that every effort should, however, be made to make the Conference all-inclusive by involving people from all shades of opinion, including the separatists, in the discourse.